Road Less Traveled
by Lisse
Summary: The story of an alien prince, a besieged little planet, and a martial artist from Mt. Frypan. What difference can one decision really make? Blatantly shamelessly AU.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: The author doesn't own _Dragonball Z_. This story was written for fun, not profit. Please don't sue. 

Prologue: Road Less Traveled

_"I took the road less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference."_   
-- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" 

_May 756_

He was a strong man. More than that, he was a desperate one. He was being hunted by the Royal Home Guard, the personal army of the Emperor of Earth. Normally this wouldn't have been cause for concern, but he had killed a Home Guard captain -- and if they were good for anything, the Guard excelled at taking care of its own. So it was with unusual diligence that his pursuers closed in on him, and it was with particular desperation that he snatched up a likely hostage in a nameless farming settlement. 

He could have grabbed a different person. He would have, if another innocent civilian had been closer -- if, indeed, the girl hadn't tripped over a loose paving brick and stumbled into his path. But his hand closed on a black-haired teenager in a blue gi, and the course of galactic history changed forever. 

The course of the fugitive's life changed, too. For one thing, it became considerably shorter. 

When Sergeant Lynn Merrick led his men into the settlement minutes later, he found himself confronted with a strange sight. The fugitive was crumpled in the dirt and the teenager was standing over him, breathing hard. There was blood on his face and on her knuckles, but she hadn't killed him. 

While his men dragged the fugitive back to face his execution, Merrick watched the girl who would become his commander -- who would, in fact, become the living legend of the Home Guard and the unlikely queen of a dying race. 

Her name was Chichi Mau. She was fifteen, and she was looking for a boy she hadn't seen in years. She wanted to marry him. 

And Merrick did something few Home Guards would have bothered to do in that day and age. He looked at the girl with her thick Chinese accent and her strangely proud bearing. He looked at the blood on her hands. Then he met her eyes and offered her a chance to see the world. He asked her to join the Guard. 

She hesitated, torn between two paths. But she was a king's daughter, proud of her heritage and as stubborn as any general, and at that moment the love of battle ran strong in her. 

Sometimes Fate leaves two paths open. In another universe -- one where a teenager and a sergeant never crossed paths -- the girl became a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. Her battles were for the well-being of her husband and her sons. In that universe there was no blood on her hands, no sword at a tyrant's throat, no voyages across space and no desperate last stands on alien worlds. 

In that universe, Chichi Mau married Goku Son. In that universe, she went right. 

The girl in the gi looked Merrick in the eye. And after a moment's hesitation, she went left. 


	2. 2000 Light Years From Home

Disclaimer: _Dragonball Z_ is the property of Akira Toriyama. This story was written for fun, not profit. 

Road Less Traveled   
Chapter One: 2,000 Light Years From Home

_"It's so very lonely   
2,000 light years from home."_   
-- The Rolling Stones 

~~

_five years later_

"Gohan! Cami! Put those down right -- I saw that! Don't you give me that look!" 

Bristling with righteous maternal wrath, Bulma Briefs-Son plowed through the baseball players crowded into the dugout and deftly grabbed her four-year-old twins by their collars. Before they could even think to protest, she held them at arms' length and scowled at them, daring them to say anything in their defense. 

Since they were _her_children, they did just that. "Lemme go!" Gohan whined as he thrashed in Bulma's grip. Camisole -- or Cami when she wasn't in big trouble -- was the more roundabout thinker, so she just looked indignant and attempted to hide at least three baseballs behind her back. 

Bulma wasn't buying any of it for a second. "And just _what_do you two think you're doing?" 

The twins stopped squirming long enough to exchange glances, as if they were getting their story straight. "We were gonna help Uncle Yamcha," Gohan said at last. Since he was taller, louder, and even slightly older than his sister, he was generally their spokesperson. 

Not that Cami couldn't jump in when she wanted to avoid being grounded. "We were gonna bring him his stuff," she chirped. 

"And we wanted to get autographs." 

"So that's why we got lotsa baseballs." 

"'Cause we weren't gonna throw them or anything." 

"Nuh uh. That'd be _wrong_." 

"We love you, Mommy!" 

Bulma just quirked an eyebrow. Gohan and Cami had taught her patience in ways no one else could have, but she still wasn't used to children who not only talked just as much as she did, but who happily tag-teamed when they thought they could get away with it. Plenty of twins finished each other's sentences. _Her_ children started them. 

"Are you done?" she snapped when the twins finally paused for breath. Without waiting for an answer -- mostly because she knew she'd get even more sucking-up -- she tucked a squirming four-year-old under each arm and started hunting for either her husband or Yamcha. One of them could deal with the little terrors for a while. 

It wasn't really fair to call the twins spoiled, since their mischief required more careful thought and hard work than any pair of small children should have been capable of. But they _had_ grown up in the limelight. Bulma was the heir of Capsule Corporation, and Goku Son, her husband and the twins' father, was one of the most popular and successful martial artists on the planet. The twins' births had actually made the front page of a couple local newspapers, and they were constantly being asked which parent they wanted to take after and what they wanted to be when they grew up. Perhaps out a desire to ignore all of this publicity, Gohan and Cami spent the majority of their time putting their strength and intellect to all kinds of questionable uses. Where the twins went, lawsuits inevitably followed. 

"Bulma! Over here!" Goku waved over the growing crowd, although he didn't really need to. He was taller than most of the baseball players in the dugout -- and if his height wasn't enough to give him away, there was always his spiky black hair. Today he was wearing a tee shirt and jeans instead of his customary orange gi. Bulma still wasn't sure how she had pulled off that small miracle. 

Twins tucked firmly under her arms, she maneuvered her way through the crowd until she wound up next to Goku. "Your turn!" she crowed, and unceremoniously dumped the twins at their father's feet. This close, it was obvious whose children they were. Gohan was his father's son, with the same spiky hair and dark eyes, while Cami had her mother's blue eyes and her grandfather's lavender hair. Her grandmother had tied a giant pink bow to her ponytail and jammed her into a ruffled dress, which made her look like a particularly tasteless parade float. 

Gohan, who had escaped Mrs. Briefs' fashion sense, began to climb up his father to steal his baseball cap. "Mommy won't let us keep our baseballs." 

"Are they really yours?" Goku asked. He wasn't always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it was still remarkably hard for the twins to slip anything past him. 

Sure enough, Gohan hesitated and glanced down at his sister. Cami just shrugged. "We wanted to get autographs," she said, falling back on their old story. 

Bulma let out an undignified snort and lobbed the baseballs at Goku, who absently caught them bare-handed. "Don't let them fool you," she said. "They were going to throw them at the other team. Weren't you?" 

The twins' jaws dropped. "How'd you know that?" Gohan demanded. 

"Because that's what I would've done if I'd wanted to 'help' your uncle." Bulma laughed at the twins' open mouths and began to scan the dugout for the aforementioned Yamcha. He was much harder to find, so she sighed and resorted to Plan B. "Goku? You're taller than me. Find Yamcha." 

Goku grinned and peered at the crowd. "He's by the water cooler," he said after a moment, pointing in the appropriate direction." 

"Thanks." Bulma jumped up and down a few times to get a better view. Then she gave up and put her considerable lung power to good use. "_Yamcha! Get over here!_" 

Amazingly enough, the bellowing worked. Yamcha elbowed his way to the little family and good-naturedly let the twins leap over to tackle him, even if they did rumple his uniform. As far as Gohan and Cami were concerned, he was their favorite person in the whole world and could do no wrong -- a feeling that was more than mutual. Yamcha would never admit it, but Bulma knew that, like Goku, he would move heaven and earth for the twins. 

Her smile faded. For all that Kuririn and that stupid pervert Roshi had predicted screaming and broken glassware, she and Yamcha had split up pretty amicably, or at least amicably for them. She had married Goku because -- well, because he was _Goku_, and if there was one thing she could rely on, it was the fact that he wouldn't go running off after some other girl. Sure, he was always training and he had a bit of a one-track mind, but she couldn't begrudge him a hobby when she was always playing in the labs. They shouldn't have worked. Very possibly they didn't work by most people's standards. But Bulma was fairly happy, and she knew at a gut level that this was the closest she would ever get to a regular family. 

It wasn't that she had any regrets. Really it wasn't. It was just hard to ignore the what-ifs lurking in the back of her head, especially when she watched the twins happily sitting on their favorite uncle's shoulders. 

Now wasn't the time for any of this. She had a day off, and damned if she wasn't going to enjoy it. "Right," she said, plastering a smile on her face. "Let's go find our seats. Who wants hot dogs?" 

The happy cheers of three very hungry Sons deafened the entire dugout. 

After much pushing through crowds -- and after buying out an entire hot dog stand -- the family managed to make its way to their front-row seats. This was one of the most important games of the season, which meant the twins were ecstatic. They were utterly convinced that Uncle Yamcha would lead his team to victory. 

Bulma distributed the hot dogs without too many threats, laced her fingers behind her head, and leaned back to enjoy her first real holiday in a long time. The twins had already fulfilled their daily damage quota, the food was plentiful, Goku wasn't at a tournament, and she had left her damn pager at home. What could possibly go wrong? 

~~

Captain Lynn Merrick, Royal Home Guard, demanded the very best from his men. He required them to actually investigate crimes, and he even went so far as to make them fill out the paperwork. Anyone who shirked -- or worse, who abused what little authority the Guard actually had -- was asking for a swift kick out the door. He had no time for people who couldn't respect the laws they were supposed to be enforcing. 

His prospects for promotion were about zilch. Nobody liked a competent Guard. 

"Why are we supposed to investigate _this?_" Corporal Chichi Mau, one of Merrick's pet projects, waved a tattered fax under his nose. At the moment she sounded very put out. "I thought we were leaving things like this to the U.F.O. nuts, Captain." 

Merrick plucked the fax from Chichi's grasp. It had a coffee stain on it. "What's this?" 

"A couple of farmers reported a big sphere flying overhead about an hour ago. One of them got a photo of it." Chichi nodded to the grainy, black-and-white picture at the bottom of the fax. It looked for all the world like someone was flying a giant ping pong ball. 

"I don't see an engine," Merrick said as he scanned the contents of the fax. One name in particular caught his attention, and he swore when he saw it. In a rare moment of intelligence, the commanders had decided the Ping Pong Ship might be something cooked up by the remnants of the Red Ribbon Army -- or by whoever was hiding that asshole Gero. 

To say the Home Guard hated Red Ribbon was an understatement. Few things proved the ineffectiveness of a planetary police force better than an entire private army doing whatever it damn well pleased. A chance to get back at Red Ribbon -- even a remote chance -- was too good to pass up. 

"Take Gupta and do a sweep," Merrick said as he handed the fax back to Chichi. "If you see anything suspicious, radio for backup." 

Chichi did _not_ look happy. "Captain, we have that business with the water main and the boundary dispute -- " 

"I gave you an order, Mau." 

For a moment there was a flash of anger, not particularly well-hidden on her expressive face, but it vanished before anything could come of it. Chichi was one of the rising stars of the Home Guard -- or she would have been if she had decided to abandon Merrick and follow a more bureaucratic commander -- and she definitely had her own opinions on how things should be run. Merrick knew that. It was one of the reasons he had taken her under his wing, such as it was. It was only a matter of time before the opinionated, volatile twenty-year-old got fed up with the situation and went after the entire structure of the Home Guard with all the subtlety of an erupting volcano. 

He couldn't wait. 

In the meantime, though, he just nodded to the door. "Don't take all day." 

"Yes, Captain." Even Chichi's halfhearted salute was disapproving. But all she did was turn on her heel, leaving Merrick's tiny office without another word. 

~~

Two outs in the sixth inning, the score tied 3-3, and their favorite uncle at bat. If the twins cheered any louder, they were going to burst eardrums. 

Not that their parents had been providing great examples. The only people who had been anywhere near as loud as the twins for the entire game were Goku and Bulma, who liked a good competitive situation when they saw it. Goku liked to cheer anyway, and Bulma appreciated a decent game as much as the next person, especially if she got to watch from the sidelines. Kami knew she cheered the loudest at all of Goku's tournaments. 

The noise might have been why the sense of wrongness crept in slowly -- so slowly that Bulma only gradually became aware of it. Something was off. Reluctantly, Bulma tore her gaze away from the pitcher's mound and glanced around her to see what had dared to intrude on her day off. 

A heartbeat later she stopped being annoyed. "Goku?" 

Her husband wasn't cheering anymore. He wasn't even looking at the baseball diamond. Instead he was leaning on the railing and frowning at the sky above the stadium. 

The sense of wrongness got a hell of a lot worse. Bulma hadn't seen Goku like this in years, but she knew from quite a lot of experience that when he got that expression, something bad was probably going to happen. "Goku?" she repeated, attempting not to sound nervous. "What is it?" 

He jerked slightly, as if she had startled him. "There's somebody coming this way," he said quietly. "They're strong, and they're moving fast." 

Oh, hell. Bulma moved closer to the oblivious twins, ready to snatch them up and run if she had to. "Someone dangerous?" she asked, all too aware of Goku's tendency to attract powerful lunatics. 

"I don't know. But Yamcha can sense them, too. See?" Goku nodded to their friend. Bulma looked over just in time to see Yamcha set down his bat and run towards them. The crowd was starting to buzz, but no one sounded alarmed yet -- just annoyed. 

Ignoring the twins' protests, Bulma grabbed them and shoved them into their seats. If there was trouble coming, she wanted them out of the way. "Yamcha!" she called over the growing noise from the crowd. "What the hell is going on?" 

"I don't know." Yamcha kept looking over his shoulder at the sky, focusing on exactly the same spot Goku had. "Do we get out of here?" 

"Not if they're heading for the stadium." Goku snagged the railing and vaulted over it, landing easily on the baseball diamond. "Hey, Bulma? We're just going to see what's going on. Stay here, okay?" 

Bulma nodded, although she had no intention of sticking around. She was going to get the twins safely out of the stadium, and then she was going to go right back in there and help out. Maybe she wasn't a fighter, but she was perfectly intelligent and could be damn useful in a crisis. Someone needed to make sure Goku and Yamcha kept their heads on their shoulders. 

It was a perfectly good idea, and might have worked splendidly if she had been dealing with anyone's children but her own. 

"Daddy!" Gohan jumped out of his seat and ran to the railing, squirming between the bars before Bulma could grab him. Cami was a half-step behind him. For a second Bulma just gaped after them. Goku was already running across the diamond with Yamcha, too far away to hear the twins. And in the confusion they could get lost or hurt or cause more property damage. 

"Damn it," she growled, and climbed over the railing. One of these days she was going to figure out why she hadn't married somebody more sedate. When she was running to keep up, that was never a good sign. 

~~

Gohan and Cami Son never really meant to be in the middle of things. It was just that their first instinct was to run toward the loudest noise or to push buttons they weren't supposed to push. They were children who routinely hotwired their way into and out of their mom's labs and who dragged their dad's training weights around to drop on each other. Given their natures, they had to be practically indestructible. 

Which was just as well, since they were right in middle of the baseball diamond when the ground opened up in front of them and a shockwave blew them backwards. 

Through a haze of dust and smoke, Gohan gradually became aware of the fact that his arm hurt a lot, and that there were people groaning and whimpering all around him. There was a lot of screaming, but it sounded distant -- probably from the people in the stands. The little boy pushed himself up with his good arm and blinked to clear his vision, scanning the ruined baseball diamond for his sister. "Cami?" 

No answer. She was nowhere to be seen. 

Gohan's stomach twisted unpleasantly as he climbed to his feet. It was hard to see through all the smoke, but as far as he could tell nobody else around him was standing up. Some of them weren't even moving. He started to whimper in panic. Everyone knew he was the stronger twin. It was his job to protect his sister when he had to. "Cami!" he yelled as he stumbled blindly. "Cami! Are you oka -- OW!" 

The little boy slammed into something warm and solid, like a walking wall. He fell backwards, and then looked up and up and _up_ until he found himself staring at a sneering face and a pair of dark, unfriendly eyes. The person he had walked into was wearing some kind of brown armor, complete with a furry belt around his waist. His hair was dark and spiky like Gohan's. There was some kind of viewscreen fitted over one eye -- something a bit like his mom's Dragonball radar, a detached part of Gohan's mind realized. 

"Eek," he said. 

For a moment the huge man just blinked down at him, as if unable to sort out exactly what he was. Then he reached down and grabbed him by the front of his tee shirt. "You look like Kakarott," he said bluntly. 

Gohan was used to being manhandled by his mom, but _this_ guy was completely different. He was frightening and very strong -- maybe stronger than Gohan's dad -- and the prospect of being hauled around by him was too scary to contemplate. So Gohan did what came naturally to any self-respecting Briefs and put his lungpower to good use. 

"_Put me down!_ Lemme go! My daddy's gonna get you! He's gonna beat you up and my uncles are gonna help and you're gonna be _sorry!_" He added a kick for good measure, which didn't seem to do anything at all, and was about to resort to biting when a very familiar, worried voice cut through the slowly settling dust. 

"Gohan!" 

Gohan squirmed around frantically and saw his dad and his Uncle Yamcha coming into view. He still couldn't see his mom or Cami anywhere, but he wasn't worried anymore. Whatever this guy was up to, he wasn't going to get away with it. "Daddy's gonna beat you up," he snarled. 

The tall man just laughed. Gohan shivered and kept his mouth shut. 

His dad didn't, of course. As soon as he spotted Gohan his eyes narrowed and his hands balled into fists. "Let him go!" 

"Is this your son, Kakarott?" Gohan's captor held him at arm's length as if he was examining him. Since it was easier for him to be angry than to be scared, Gohan squirmed again and tried to get enough leverage to land a really good punch. He wished he had thought to hide one of the baseballs from his mom. 

His dad took a careful step forward, obviously furious, but unwilling to make any sudden moves. "That's not my name," he said tightly, and then took in the ruined baseball diamond with a gesture. "What'd you do this for? Nobody did anything to you!" 

"It's not my fault you didn't do your job!" the tall man snapped. Then he smirked down at Gohan, who was still trying to find some way to hit him. "What, did you find yourself a distraction?" His gaze shifted. When Gohan stopped struggling long enough to follow it, he saw that his mom had come up behind his dad and uncle. She was holding onto Cami, who looked stunned, but otherwise unhurt. 

A moment later his dad spoke again. He sounded angrier than Gohan had ever heard him -- and maybe a little scared, too. "I don't know what you're talking about. Now put Gohan down and go away." 

The strange man just stared at him. Gohan peered up at him and realized that despite the nasty glint in his eye, his captor was -- what? Disappointed that his dad wasn't a lunatic? 

"You really don't remember, do you?" The man sounded disgusted. "You were supposed to kill the life forms on this planet, not befriend them. You don't even have your tail anymore!" 

Tail? Gohan glanced over at Cami, who stopped clutching onto their mom long enough to give the strange man a withering look. "You're crazy, Mister." 

"Quiet, Cami." Gohan's mom looked over at his uncle, who was about as pale as she was. _They_ knew something about a tail, apparently. 

His dad didn't seem to notice the exchange. "I warned you," he said to the strange man, and started toward him. Uncle Yamcha was right behind him. 

Gohan didn't even feel movement. One moment his dad and uncle were charging at his kidnapper. The next they were both on the ground. His dad was on his hands and knees, clutching his ribs, and Uncle Yamcha wasn't moving at all. This guy was stronger than both of them put together. 

"Let him go! Put him down!" Cami struggled frantically in their mom's arms, but she wasn't being demanding anymore. Her eyes were wide and panicked, and her voice was starting to quaver. She was going to cry any second now. 

The strange man looked over at Gohan's twin and his mom, who was shaking very hard. Then he grinned nastily and walked over to Gohan's dad, kicking him onto his back and planting a foot on his chest. "I'll make this simple for you," he said. "I'm your brother, since you forgot that, too. You're a Saiyan like me, and your job was to purge this planet. So I'm going to make sure you _do_ your job." 

"I'm not doing anything!" Gohan's dad began, but any further arguments were cut off when the strange man pressed down hard on his throat. His dad's protests turned into a choked gasp. Gohan shuddered, too terrified to try and get free. 

"I'll kill the brat if you don't," the strange man said. He waved his free hand to take in the quickly emptying stadium. "I want everybody here dead. Especially those three," he added, jabbing a finger at Gohan's mom, Cami, and his weakly coughing uncle. "Understand, Kakarott?" 

Gohan's dad just glared at him. 

Apparently satisfied with that answer, the strange man stepped back and got a better grip on Gohan, who was still too shocked to try kicking or biting. His stare locked with his sister's for a second -- more than long enough for the full horror of the situation to hit him. Their dad and uncle couldn't beat this guy. Probably nobody in the world could. And no matter what their dad decided to do, one of them was going to have to die. 

Something hot and angry flared up inside him. He wasn't going to let his mom and Cami die. And if something had to happen to him, he was going to make sure he hurt this jerk first. 

By the time the ground spun away and his family vanished far below him, Gohan had started to kick and bite again. No way was he letting this guy win. 

~~

The Home Guard unit unofficially known as Merrick's Men was stationed in the middle of nowhere. Its headquarters was a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Ginger Town, a rather small community of fifteen thousand blameless individuals who really didn't deserve to have twenty disgruntled men and women running around at all hours. Rumor had it that they were petitioning to have the entire unit moved elsewhere, but given the Home Guard's usual inefficiency, they were probably stuck with Merrick's Men for another decade or two. 

Chichi enjoyed the little town. Her father, the giant Ox-King, had raised her in a tiny settlement in the middle of nowhere, so she always felt cramped in cities. Back when her biggest goals had been to settle down and get married, she had dreamed of living somewhere far removed from any kind of civilization. Even Ginger Town, small though it was, sometimes made her feel crowded and confined when she was in a bad mood. 

Which was definitely the case at the moment. And her companion wasn't helping matters in the slightest. 

Constable Avani Gupta was everything Chichi wasn't. The wealthy and idealistic daughter of a banker and a surgeon, she had grown up in Mumbai and considered herself very cosmopolitan. Her way of "giving something back," as she put it, had been to join the Guard. Chichi had never mentioned her father around Avani, simply because she was the sort of person who considered giants a myth. Hopefully she would grow out of that mindset sooner or later -- although possibly not before Chichi found something heavy to hit her with. 

Not that she had a temper or anything. 

"Corporal? Do you think Red Ribbon's really behind this? Are we going to have a fight?" Avani's voice crackled over their walkie-talkies as they steered their hoverbikes around the outskirts of Ginger Town. She sounded a little too eager for Chichi's tastes. 

Since Chichi had seen exactly what Red Ribbon could do years ago, she didn't share her fellow Guard's enthusiasm. "I _think_ someone's playing a joke on us," she answered, setting the bike's course for the mountains with only a bit of swearing. She was the sort of person who took whatever job she happened to have very seriously. Distracting the Guard with a stupid prank was a great way to get on her bad side. 

On the other hand, she hadn't been entirely truthful with Avani. She didn't think anyone was playing a trick on them this time. If it came to a fight she had her gun and her not-quite-regulation sword, and she knew that she was one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the Guard, if not thebest. But she was still only one person. Avani was barely eighteen and had had a very sheltered upbringing, which meant that she had never seen real combat in her life. The odds were that she would be more of a hindrance than a help. 

All of these thoughts played through her mind over and over again as she steered her bike over fields and roughly paved roads. She was expecting something bad. That was why she wasn't surprised to find the reported U.F.O. sitting in a crater, looking exactly as it had been reported. A truck was parked nearby, and not too far from that.... 

"Oh, shit." Avani hopped off her bike almost before it came to a stop and ran over to the body sprawled on the ground. A second later she stepped back, looking pale and ill. "Corporal? He's been shot!" 

Chichi hurried over and knelt by the old man. He was probably the farmer who owned the damaged field. A glance told her it wasn't worth radioing for an ambulance. Leaving a shaking Avani with the body, she unhooked her pistol from its holster and began to pick her way toward the crater and the strange ship. Whoever had climbed out of it hadn't left very long ago -- not if the body was anything to go by -- but Chichi couldn't find any footprints or tracks from another vehicle. There were no flattened grasses to suggest a helicopter, and none of the faint but telltale scorch marks a hoverbike would have left behind. The culprit had just vanished into thin air. 

"Corporal?" 

Avani's voice pulled her out of her musings. With a grimace, she looked away from the ship and stood poised on the edge of the crater. "What is it, Gupta?" 

Her fellow Guard had pulled herself together, at least a little bit. Her voice wasn't shaking too badly. "Should we call for reinforcements?" 

"They wouldn't get here for another hour." 

"So do we head back, then?" 

Chichi hesitated. She knew instinctively that this situation was over her head -- that going back now would make more sense and be the right thing to do. But some part of her revolted against that course of action. That was the way it always was with the Home Guard: go in, find a mess you can't handle, and run away with your tail between your legs. No wonder they were a laughingstock. 

It might have interested her to know that no one else in her unit would have made the decision she did. But it wouldn't have stopped her. 

"We're not heading back," she said, just loudly enough for Avani to hear. Then, louder and stronger -- "We can deal with this. This is a crime scene, and we're going to investigate it properly." 

"But -- " 

"Do your job, Gupta!" 

Before Avani could answer, Chichi slid down the side of the crater and began to circle the ship. Her unease was getting more pronounced by the second, but that didn't matter. She was here, and Avani was, too. They were doing what they were supposed to do. 

For better or worse, the Home Guard wasn't running away this time. Chichi wouldn't let them. 


	3. Tubthumping

Disclaimer: _Dragonball Z _is the property of Akira Toriyama. This story was written for fun, not profit.

Author's Notes: I've made an assumption about Chichi's strength in this chapter, mainly based on the fact that in the manga we see her getting batted through walls by her darling husband and emerging relatively unscathed. I'm also assuming that a Briefs version of Gohan, without the giant grandfather thrown into the mix, would be at least a little weaker than his canon counterpart. Humor me. :)

As always, many thanks to my very patient reviewers, and to Nadia Rose for putting up with my rambling at two in the morning.

::

Road Less Traveled:  
Chapter Two: Tubthumping

::

_"I get knocked down, but I get up again.  
You're never gonna keep me down."_  
-- _Chumbawumba_

::

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

Ignoring the chaos around her, Bulma ran over to Goku and crouched next to him. "Get up! We've got to get Gohan back!" Her voice hitched. She didn't want to think about what that psycho might do to her little boy.

Goku coughed and climbed to his feet as quickly as he could. He was clearly in a lot of pain, but he yelled for Kito'un anyway. "Stay with Yamcha," he said as the flying cloud zipped over.

Bulma gulped and nodded, although she fully intended to follow him once she made sure no one had been killed. There were all kinds of advice running through her head, a hundred things she might be able to do to help Goku, but she settled for squeezing his arm and meeting his eyes. "You be careful, okay?"

He nodded and climbed on Kito'un, which took off so quickly that a cloud of dust rose up after it. In a heartbeat it was little more than a speck in the distance, and then it was gone. Until Bulma could get the chaos at the stadium sorted out, her husband was on his own.

By now she could hear sirens in the distance, which meant that someone had had enough sense to call the police. Bulma tore her gaze away from the now-empty sky and stumbled across the ruined baseball diamond, still clutching Cami as if both their lives depended on it. She collapsed by Yamcha and desperately fumbled under his collar with two fingers, hunting for a pulse. When she found one she almost wilted with relief. The last thing she wanted was to worry about tracking down the Dragon Balls on top of everything else.

Moving like an automaton, she got to her feet and began to walk unsteadily among the other people littering the field. Most of them were groaning and picking themselves up, or were clearly playing possum. One or two weren't moving at all, but that wasn't anything she could handle on her own. Everyone was breathing, at any rate, which meant she could actually try to catch up with Goku and Gohan.

If she could figure out where they had gone. That was a big _if_.

She set Cami down and began to rummage through the capsules buckled in a pouch at her waist, cursing under her breath the whole time. "Damn it, I know I have a plane in here somewhere…Cami! Did you touch my capsules?"

The little girl jumped and shook her head quickly. She was sheet-white and trembling violently, and she had practically glued herself to Bulma's leg.

"_Shit!_" Bulma crouched next to Cami and began to pile her capsules in front of her. Panic made her clumsy and left her mind blank, so that the numbering system she had helped invent seemed like so much gibberish. After a few minutes she gave up and scrubbed her face with both hands, wondering if it would be more productive to just sit there and scream.

It would make her feel a little better, anyway.

Cami took advantage of her momentary distraction to scramble onto her lap and loop her arms around her neck. Bulma absently smoothed down her dusty hair, shredded bow and all. She felt useless and very alone. Why hadn't she thought to pack her regular capsules, even if it _had_ been her day off? She was a genius. She should have known better than that.

A few hoverbikes whined over the stadium, circling inexpertly before they landed not far from the stands. Bulma looked up in time to see ten or twelve men and women in old red uniforms climbing off the bikes and making their way to the local police officers. Why wasn't entirely clear, since there were plenty of emergency personnel streaming into the stadium already and the people in the uniforms didn't look any more well-prepared than the local law enforcement. If anything, they seemed to be even more shell-shocked, stumbling around blindly. They hadn't even bothered to lock down their bikes.

Bulma was already gathering up her capsules and climbing to her feet by the time Cami piped up. The little girl sounded much more subdued than usual. "Who're they?"

"I don't care," Bulma said, and quickly darted around a few police officers and hurried toward the bikes. They were old and badly repaired, but they would do.

Cami climbed down onto one bike's poorly patched seat, running her stubby fingers over the plaque that read _Royal Home Guard: West Capitol Division_. Then she looked over at her mother with wide eyes. "Are we gonna borrow this?"

"Close." Bulma wrenched one of the bike's maintenance hatches off and threw it carelessly onto the ground, poking and prodding at the wiring. She might not have been smart enough to pack her own plane, but she was an inventor and could commit major acts of theft when she damn well wanted to.

"You're gonna _steal_ it?" Cami's voice held a new note of awed respect.

Bulma scowled at her. "Don't get any ideas."

Cami sniffled and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, although she had stopped crying now that it looked like some kind of decisive action was being taken. She was a sticky, dirty mess and looked about as battered as her mother felt. A part of Bulma wanted to copy her and sit around crying, too. But she had a kid in danger and that sudden, strange responsibility had completely shifted her priorities. However scared she was, she had to worry about Gohan first.

"Mommy?" Cami said suddenly.

She stopped, wires poised. "_What?_"

"How're we gonna find Daddy and Gohan?"

Bulma grimaced and finished her work. "I don't know," she said, climbing onto the bike. She looped one arm around Cami and kicked the gearshift, utterly unsurprised when the newly hotwired vehicle shuddered and lifted off the grounds. The yelling, uniformed men she had just left stranded were ignored.

For a moment she circled over the stadium while she attempted to get her bearings. Just this once, she wished she had been interested in training with that stupid pervert Roshi. Maybe she should've waited for Yamcha to wake up.

Cami squirmed in her arms, tightening her grip on her mother as she squinted at the city laid out below them. She seemed to be doing the same thing Bulma was – looking for a clue that might hint at where her twin had been taken.

"There!" she called suddenly.

Bulma blinked and twisted around to peer at the spot in the sky her daughter was pointing towards. There was nothing remarkable about it. "What's there?"

"That's where Gohan is!" Cami said, her hands balling into small fists. As far as Bulma could tell, the little girl wasn't guessing. For some reason she was honestly convinced that this was the direction her twin had been taken in.

Not for the first time, Bulma realized that she didn't understand either of her children. At all.

She brought the hoverbike around and started in the direction Cami had indicated. It wasn't the best of clues, but she didn't have anything else to go on, and it was a start. "Just tell me where to go," she said.

Cami didn't seem surprised at the request. She burrowed against her mother and clung like someone who had been thrown a lifeline. At least she had stopped crying.

::

_ZAP!_

"OW! Son of a…" Chichi swore and sucked on her burnt fingers, pausing long enough to give the Ping Pong Ship a good kick. She had found its hatch quickly enough, but apparently it had some kind of nasty security system. If she hadn't moved out of the way fast enough, Avani would have had to explain a very crispy corporal to Merrick.

As it was, the aforementioned corporal was in a _really_ bad mood. She was starting to think she really should have radioed for backup. Although she knew damn well that she was a competent Guard, this kind of stuff wasn't her specialty. They had plenty of other constables and corporals who had grown up around a lot more technology than Chichi had. Maybe they would have been able to sort out how to open this thing.

Of course, they also would have run back to Ginger Town the second they'd found the dead man, but that wasn't the _point_.

Chichi sighed and began to scramble up the side of the crater, sending up a cloud of dust and making a complete mess of herself in the process. So much for getting Guards involved in keeping the peace. "Gupta! Did you find anything?"

Avani's head appeared over the edge of the crater, peering down at her. She still looked rather ill, but had apparently gotten a grip on herself long enough to actually do her job. "There's no ID on the victim, Corporal, but I have the plate numbers from the truck."

"Great. Wonderful. _Ack!_" Chichi lost what little traction she had on the loose soil and slid halfway down the crater, arms pinwheeling madly until she caught her balance. She was _not_ falling on her rear in front of Avani.

The constable wasn't as dumb as she looked – or at least she had enough sense of self-preservation to hide her snicker. Her voice was quite professional, at least for her. "Do you need help, Corporal?"

Chichi scowled, but collected the tattered remains of her dignity and held out a hand. "Here. Help me up."

Avani reached down to grab her hand, which was why both women where half-sheltered when all hell broke loose.

There was a roaring noise and a flash of light, and Chichi found herself flying back in a spray of dirt. She hit the sloped crater wall and tumbled head over heels until she smacked painfully against the strange ship. For a moment she stayed where she was, curled up in a protective ball with her ears ringing and spots dancing in front of her eyes, before she managed to collect herself and slowly lift her head.

A huge section of the crater wall had been blown away, leaving a gaping, steaming hole. Standing next to it, high above Chichi, was an enormous man with a mane of spiky hair. He was carrying a wide-eyed little boy tucked under one arm, and he did _not_ look happy. Avani was almost exactly between him and Chichi, sprawled on the earth like a discarded doll. One of her arms was twisted unnaturally and her face was covered with blood and matted hair. She had taken the brunt of the blast, whatever it had been.

Chichi hissed and pushed herself to her feet, fumbling for her pistol and taking aim. She was vaguely aware that there was a whole speech about procedures that she was supposed to go through when she was arresting someone, but her head was ringing and she hurt and she was just as angry as this jerk was. Under the circumstances, that could all go hang.

"_You_," she snarled, "are in _so much trouble_."

The man started to laugh. That probably wasn't a good sign.

Chichi glared at him and adjusted her aim. She had a bad temper anyway, and was in no mood to take a hint. "Put the boy down!"

The little boy struggled in the man's arms. He looked vaguely familiar, although for the life of her Chichi couldn't figure out why. "He's gonna kill you! Get outta here!"

Given the damage this creep had already done, the little boy was probably right. But this was Chichi's job. She had taken an oath to protect people who needed protecting, and accepting the uniform and the bad pay meant accepting that oath, too. She couldn't go back on it just because it would get her killed.

"I said put him down!" she snapped, and started toward the strange man with her gun ready.

She didn't get very far. One minute he was standing right in front of her, and the next he had vanished into thin air. Chichi spun around, trying to figure out where he had disappeared to, and found herself completely taken by surprise when something like a steel vise clamped around the back of her neck. There was a brief flash of clarity – how the _hell_ had he gotten behind her? – before she was hoisted off the ground. Pain lanced through her and black spots danced in front of her vision, so that all she could do was clumsily try to break the man's grip on her neck.

It didn't do any good. He just laughed and flung her across the crater. She hit the far wall, sliding down it and landing in a heap, and her last conscious thought was that she really should have gone back to Ginger Town when she had had the chance.

::

Gohan stopped struggling. Instead he stared in wide-eyed horror at what his kidnapper had done. He didn't know a lot, but he _did_ know that people didn't survive being thrown like that. Somebody had just been killed trying to help him. He clapped one hand over his mouth and tried not to throw up.

_Don't get sick! You have to stay mad!_ He gulped down a deep breath and started pummeling again, harder than ever. "You killed them! Lemme go!"

"Shut up," his so-called uncle growled, cuffing him with his free hand. While Gohan was still blinking spots out of his vision, he opened up what looked like some kind of round airplane and threw him inside, sealing up the hatch behind him. When Gohan hammered on the window, the stupid jerk just laughed.

Great. _Now_ what was he going to do?

He slumped in the seat and tried to collect his thoughts. He couldn't do anything for the two dead women right now, but there were still his parents and Cami and Uncle Yamcha to worry about. Unless he figured out some way to distract that jerk, the rest of his family was going to be in a lot of danger.

First things first, he had to get out of there.

Gohan had been getting into trouble almost since the day he was born – and since he lived with a very strong father and a brilliant mother, that required a lot of ingenuity on his part. Rather than hammering uselessly on a door that certainly wasn't going to budge, he scrambled over to the controls and began to fumble for any kind of switch. This was a machine, after all, and every machine had to be repaired sooner or later. If he could just find the maintenance hatch…

A few moments of frantic fumbling were rewarded with a snap and a hiss. Part of the airplane's wall slid to one side, revealing a jumble of wires. Gohan's elation faded as he studied the mess, complete with color-coded, strangely shaped circuitry. This was more complicated than anything he had ever seen. He had no clue how to make heads or tails of it.

There was a flash of light and a rumble outside. He abandoned the panel and climbed back onto the chair, pressing his nose against the window so he could find the source of the sound. When he spotted it – his dad and a strange green creature fighting his uncle – his eyes went very wide. He had seen his dad fight at tournaments plenty of times, but never like _that_.

It wasn't enough, he realized after a second. He was still losing. However strong his dad was, the stupid jerk who had kidnapped him was even stronger.

Before he quite knew what he was doing, Gohan lunged at the wires and circuitry, trying to pretend it was just another lab door he and Cami wanted to open. He had to give his dad a chance to win – and in order to do that, he had to cause a distraction.

A feral grin flashed across his face. Fortunately for him, distractions were something he excelled at.

::

For the second time that day, Chichi found herself flat on the ground. This time, however, she felt like she had been run over by a truck.

She lay with her face pressed against the dirt, because her head ached and her arm was throbbing with white-hot pain, and moving didn't really seem to be much of an option. Then she remembered how she had wound up in this situation in the first place, and her eyes flew open as full consciousness returned.

_Huge creep. Little boy. Avani!_

She pushed herself up on her knees, wobbling precariously as thunder and noise rolled in from somewhere over the lip of the crater. When her vision finally cleared, she saw the bright flashes of light that were accompanying the strange sounds. It looked and sounded like someone had started a miniature war while she had been unconscious. Given the way her day had been going, that was probably just what had happened.

Hissing in pain, she began to pull herself toward Avani's still form. She couldn't tell from this distance if the other Guard was still breathing, much less if she was going to recover – but she still had her gun strapped to her hip. At the moment that was all Chichi cared about. She needed a weapon, and since her own gun was missing and her sword was still with to her hoverbike, she would just have to make do.

Once she got closer to Avani, she saw that her chest was still rising and falling slowly. One entire side of her face was obscured by dirt and blood. Chichi clenched her hands and caught her breath, even though her ribs ached. She wanted to do something for Avani, but there didn't seem to be much she _could_ do besides making sure the little war didn't spread into the crater.

She fumbled with the gun for a few moments, but finally managed to haul it out of its holster. Then she took a deep breath and slowly, painfully climbed to her feet. When the world decided to stop swimming, she began to pick her way to the Ping Pong Ship.

Which opened up before she had taken three steps.

Chichi brought the gun up, but breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was just the little boy. "Hey!" she hissed.

He looked up from the bundle of wires he was clutching and let out a squeak. "You're alive?"

"Looks like it," she said as she made her way over. "You okay?"

He didn't _look_ okay, but he nodded and began yanking more wires out of the ship. "You should duck."

"Why?"

"'Cause I'm gonna blow this up."

Chichi gaped at him. She didn't know whether to take him seriously or laugh in his face. Given the way he was scowling at her and holding the wires in a sure grip, she chose the former. "Right," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the flashing lights and noises. "Do you need help?"

The little boy frowned. "Can you get that big jerk to come over here?"

Chichi nodded. While the boy began to drag his wires away from the Ping Pong Ship, his tongue stuck between his teeth, she stumbled away from him and made her way to the crater wall closest to the sounds of battle. This time she didn't bother with dignity, but simply flattened herself against the loose soil and scrabbled up to peer over the edge.

Suddenly she knew why the little boy looked so familiar.

There were three people fighting – the man who had somehow managed to beat her and Avani, and two others. One was a strange creature. The other, complete with the bizarre black hair, was Goku Son, whom she had been intent on finding and marrying five years ago.

She sucked in a deep breath, because she had no time for what-ifs now. Instead she leveled Avani's gun, balancing as well as she could on the shifting soil, and fired off a shot at the long-haired fighter.

Almost before she could blink, he had reached up with one hand and caught the bullet in midair. He flung it back at her carelessly, and she yelled and ducked in a cloud of dust and dirt as it flickered past her head. When she risked a glance back at the little boy – Goku's son – she saw that he had hit the ground with his hands clapped over his head, and was only now getting back to his feet. He gave her a wide-eyed look and began to fiddle with the wires again.

Chichi gritted her teeth and climbed back up to take another shot. She propped herself on her injured arm, hoped like hell that she wouldn't hit Goku or his green friend, and fired at the little boy's kidnapper. Immediately she dove back into the questionable cover of the crater, rolling and cursing as the soft soil gave way beneath her again, and this time she could swear she _heard_ the whistle of the bullet as it flashed in front of her eyes.

When she looked up again, the hulking man was fighting his way to the edge of the crater, apparently unconcerned by her or by the other people fighting him. She climbed to her feet and ran over to the boy, who was glaring defiantly at his kidnapper and knotting the last few wires together. He didn't protest when she grabbed him by the collar and dropped into a roll, shielding him from the attack that she knew was coming.

There was a roar and a deafening boom, as if a lightning bolt had struck right behind her. She felt a flash of prickling heat and saw white-hot metal whistle past her before she squeezed her eyes shut. The surprised bellow behind her told her that the boy's kidnapper hadn't attacked after all – Goku's son had managed to blow up the strange ship.

"Come on!" she hissed, and began to edge away from the wreckage. The boy squirmed in her arms, yelling and kicking, and she realized he was trying to get to his father. Despite her better judgment, she stopped a few steps from Avani and turned around, the boy still clutched in her arms, and watched in open-mouthed astonishment as Goku and the green creature renewed their attack. Chichi realized with a sickening lurch that it didn't look as if their opponent had been injured at all.

The little boy stilled for a moment, as if he was also stunned by the fact that his ambush hadn't worked. Then he wriggled suddenly, twisting until Chichi lost his grip on him. She dove and tried to catch his arm, but he jerked out of reach and dove forward, head-butting his kidnapper like a living missile.

There was a cracking noise, like someone snapping bone – and to Chichi's utter astonishment, the man stumbled.

That seemed to be all Goku needed. While his son tumbled back into the crater, pale and still, he tackled the stranger. He was shouting something to the green creature, but Chichi couldn't hear. She was already running – not away, as any sensible person would have by that point, but toward the little boy. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and she was terrified that the snapping noise she had heard had been the child's neck. She yelled and braced herself over him as something like a white-hot beam seared overhead, all light and noise, and two bodies where thrown back into the wreckage of the ship.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Chichi climbed back up, swaying slightly as a hundred different injuries began clamoring for attention. But she didn't have time to deal with them. Cradling her injured, bloody arm, she walked over to what was left of the ship. The green creature was still standing beside it with his arms crossed, which meant that the bodies she had seen flying overhead must have been the boy's kidnapper and –

"Goku!" She stumbled over half-buried shrapnel and crouched beside him, ignoring the green creature's glare. The white beam had burned a hole through his chest. Without waiting to see if he recognized her or even acknowledged her presence, she spun around to glare at the green creature and jab a finger in what she hoped was the direction of the hoverbikes. "I've got two radios up there. We can call for an ambulance if we…." She trailed off under the creature's withering glare.

"We can wish him back," he said – the first time she had really heard him talk. Despite herself, Chichi took an involuntary step back. He turned his stare on the stranger, who also had a hole through him. The metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air, and although she liked to tell herself she was experienced and worldly, Chichi had clap a hand over her mouth and gulp back bile. This was far worse than anything she had ever dealt with, and she had the sinking feeling that this had nothing to do with Gero or with anything the Guard could handle – that she was hopelessly out of her element.

The green creature ignored her, smirking down at the stranger instead. "We'll wish him back using the Dragon Balls," he elaborated, and Chichi realized he was gloating. "You're the only one who's really going to die here."

For a moment the stranger stared up at him. Then, with blood bubbling around his mouth, he let out a horrible laugh.

Something inside Chichi went very cold. "What's so funny?" she snapped.

He laughed again, louder this time, despite the wound in his chest and the crack in his armor that the little boy must have caused. "You're all wrong," he rasped, taking in the green creature and Chichi and Goku with a sneer. "There's two others – stronger than me. They saw everything. They'll come here."

The cold feeling got a lot worse. Chichi ran through the list of Guards, all the men and women who were supposed to defend Earth, and came up far too short. The entire Home Guard wouldn't have been able to deal with the stranger. If there were _two _of him coming to Earth, each stronger than he had been….

"When?" Goku asked. She almost jumped out of her skin.

"In a year." The stranger started to laugh again, harsher and crueler than before, and there were flecks of blood on his face and blood staining the ground. Chichi wanted to find her sword and finish what the other two had started.

Instead she turned around and went to check on Goku's son, only half-listening to the green creature snarl and finish the job. The stranger went mercifully silent.

The little boy was still unconscious when she crouched next to him, but aside from a few bruises, he seemed to have come through the ordeal all right. The snap she had heard must have been him cracking his kidnapper's armor. As gently as she could, she picked him up and cradled him with her uninjured arm while she checked on Avani. Only when she saw that the younger Guard was breathing – pale, still, battered, but breathing – did she wobble back to the wreckage.

Goku's half-closed eyes opened and he clenched one hand, as if he were trying to find the strength or the leverage to sit up. "Gohan – "

"He's okay," Chichi said. Something was caught in her throat, and the dust still hanging in the air was making her eyes sting. She swiped at them with one hand and glared for all she was worth. "Shut up and rest."

The hand unclenched. "Wish me back, okay?"

She stomped her foot, feeling childish and utterly helpless. "Would you _rest_ already?"

He smiled a little, as if he thought this was funny for some reason, and fell silent. Chichi clutched the little boy – Gohan – tighter as she scrubbed at her eyes again. The only sound was the hiss of cooling metal.

After a long moment she set Gohan gently on a cleaner patch of ground and drew herself up to what little height she had. She barely reached the green creature's chest. "What do we do now?" she asked softly.

The creature didn't answer. He tilted his head to one side, peering into the distance – and abruptly Chichi heard the familiar whine of a poorly-repaired hoverbike. After years of wrestling with the Home Guard's substandard equipment, she would've known that sound anywhere. A few seconds later the bike came into view and circled overhead, blowing dirt and matted hair into Chichi's eyes. Whoever was steering either didn't notice or didn't care, because the bike very nearly landed on top of her. The driver left it running and only paused long enough to swipe at the kickstand before they took off toward Goku.

Chichi left the little reunion, feeling very much like an intruder, and slowly picked her way across the crater and toward her own hoverbike. The stranger's threat loomed large, and somewhere beyond her injured arm and shaky legs, she wondered what exactly what one did when the end of the world was coming.

It took a few moments of fumbling for her to switch her radio on. She didn't bother with any official codes. Even if she had wanted to, they had flown completely out of her head.

"Officer down." That didn't quite seem to sum things up adequately. She licked dry lips and tried again. "This is Corporal Mau. I've got civilians down too. I need an ambulance," she added, for lack of anything more descriptive.

Merrick's voice crackled over the radio. "Mau? What the hell is going on over there? Where's Gupta?"

"Shut up," Chichi mumbled, and slowly slid to the ground before her legs gave out from under her. She was dimly aware that something else was happening in the crater, that she should go see if Gohan needed attention or where exactly the new arrivals had gotten a Home Guard hoverbike. But she couldn't move – and in a haze of utter exhaustion, she realized she couldn't bring herself to care, either.

Merrick was going to kill her.


	4. Run Through The Jungle

Disclaimer: _Dragonball Z _is the property of Akira Toriyama. This story was written for fun, not profit.

Author's Note: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed, and especially to those brave individuals who put up with me while I hashed out plot points. You people are saints. Seriously.

--

Road Less Traveled  
Chapter Three: Run Through The Jungle 

--

_Thought it was all a nightmare.  
Lord, it's all so true.  
They told me, "Don't go walkin' slow.  
The devil's on the loose."  
– Creedence Clearwater Revival_

--

If Bulma had been given any time to think, she might have wondered how it was that Cami had steered her so unerringly toward a ruined field and a crater filled with smoking wreckage. She might even have been apprehensive. But she was worried and angry, and all she did was silently thank whichever deities happened to be listening that her daughter had some kind of undiscovered skill.

And when she landed in the crater, even that thought flew completely out her head. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of blood and burning circuitry, and there were bodies thrown everywhere. Bulma saw the bastard who had kidnapped Gohan sprawled amidst the remnants of some kind of ship, a hole burned through his chest. She couldn't bring herself to feel sick at the sight. On the contrary, all she felt was a kind of vicious, vindictive pleasure.

Leaving Cami with the stolen hoverbike, she pushed past a dark-haired, battered woman and picked her way through the shrapnel to where Goku lay. He had a similar hole through him. Bulma didn't bother to look for a pulse. No one survived that kind of wound, not even someone as strong as her husband.

She reached down to squeeze his hand, then jerked back with a yelp as his body began to fade away. "What the _hell?_"

"It was Kami," a voice said behind her.

Bulma spun around and found herself facing someone tall and green and horribly familiar. She swallowed and took an involuntary step back, because the last thing she wanted to do now was deal with Piccolo on her own. But that was exactly the situation she found herself in. Goku was dead and their other friends were miles away, and she was the only person standing between an old enemy and her twins.

"What're you talking about?" she demanded, surprised that she sounded angry instead of frightened. "Where's Goku?"

Piccolo gave her a withering look. "He's been taken to the station for dead spirits," he growled, and then turned his back and stalked off.

Right toward the twins.

Gohan had been spread out on the ground when Bulma had arrived, unconscious, but not visibly hurt. As soon as her mother had let her go, Cami had run over to crouch beside him, as if her presence could somehow protect him. Now Bulma watched as her daughter climbed to her feet – trembling and clearly terrified, but unwilling to abandon her twin.

But Piccolo didn't even glance at her. He simply bent down and scooped up Gohan, and then turned away. The little boy seemed impossibly tiny in his arms.

Bulma crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides. She didn't dare to get in Piccolo's way, because she knew perfectly well that he could kill her. Instead she attempted to keep pace with him, almost running to cover the same ground as each of his long strides.

"Put him _down!_" she snarled. "I'll kill you if you hurt him! I swear I will!"

Piccolo stopped and turned toward her, as if he had only just remembered that she was there. He nodded toward the dead kidnapper as he spoke. "He said that two others are coming soon."

"Two others? Like that bastard?" She took Piccolo's lack of response for a yes, and plowed on. "Then we'll deal with that when the time comes! Now _give him back!_'

She was ignored, of course. Piccolo simply turned and walked away from her again. "I'm training the boy. When you wish his father back, tell him I'll return his son in a year."

Bulma balled her hands into fists, but could do nothing as he took to the air. For the second time that day, she watched helplessly as her son was carried far beyond her reach – except that this time, there was no one left to bring him back.

"What're we gonna do?" Cami asked. She was clutching at the hem of her stupid, frilly dress and peering a point in the distance anxiously. Bulma would have bet any money that she would know exactly where Gohan had been taken.

She sighed and hung her head for a long moment, drawing a shuddering breath to collect herself. "Find the woman who was here when we landed. See if she has a phone or a radio." When Cami nodded and scampered, apparently glad to have something to do, Bulma squared her shoulders and marched back over to the body of her son's kidnapper. Then she reached down and removed his strange eyepiece. It looked like some kind of scanner or transmitter, although the language was nothing she could identify. She wasn't dealing with the body. As far as she was concerned, the bastard could rot for what he had done.

That left her with one other casualty.

There was a very young woman in the middle of crater – more like a girl, Bulma saw as she moved closer. She was dressed in a red uniform much like the ones the hoverbike owners had been wearing at the stadium. It didn't take any kind of medical expertise to see that she was in bad shape. Since she didn't have any senzus with her, Bulma crouched by her and began to check injuries she could deal with.

"The other lady called for help." Cami said as she reappeared at the edge of the crater. The dark-haired woman was sitting next to her, looking dazed. From the way her arm was looped around Cami's shoulders, she must have needed help to move herself at all. When Bulma glanced at her face, sensing that she should know those features, the woman blinked at her and gave her a thin half-smile.

"Rough day?" she asked hoarsely.

Bulma grimaced. "Yeah," she agreed, and went back to checking the girl. "Rough day."

--

Gohan woke up when someone dunked him in a pond.

"_Hey!_" He flailed until he made his way back to dry land, and then flopped on his stomach long enough to blink water out of his eyes. His entire head was throbbing. For a few seconds he wondered what scheme of his had gone awry, and if there was any way he and Cami could talk their way out of trouble this time.

Then he realized there was soft grass tickling his face, and that his half-fisted hand was covered with grime and burns. When he took a breath, something hitched in his throat and he coughed. His throat felt like it was coated with dust.

_Maybe the pond was a good idea,_ he thought blearily, levering himself up on his arms.

Something grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him upright – an action that brought back sudden memories of the spaceship and his kidnapper and his father. He twisted and flailed around until he found himself staring up at something green and almost certainly not human.

Later he would deny screaming. But at that moment, he yelled for all he was worth and struggled frantically, desperate to get away.

The green man glared at him. "Shut up, kid. We need to talk."

Gohan opened his mouth to bellow, but something about the way the man was looking at him made him clam up. He had seen this guy fight beside his dad, which probably meant he was some old friend of the family – and ticking him off wouldn't be a good idea.

"'Bout what?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

The man dropped him. While Gohan sat on the ground, rubbing his sore head and wondering if he could get away with kicking the jerk in the shins, he refolded his arms and peered down at him. There was a long, strained silence.

Finally Gohan worked up the nerve to make a face at him. "I thought you said we were gonna talk! And where's Daddy, you jerk?"

"He's dead," the man said.

Gohan felt as if someone had opened up a pit beneath his feet. There were rock-hard certainties in his life, and one of them was that no matter how many times he and Cami drove them completely nuts, his parents would always make things better. They could fix anything and do everything, because they were strong and brilliant and Daddy and Mommy – and one of the most important things that made them Daddy and Mommy was that they didn't up and _die_.

He scrubbed at his eyes and sniffled, desperately trying not to cry. "You're lying," he muttered, although he didn't really believe his own words.

"Don't start bawling," the man grumbled. "You'll regret it." He waited until Gohan had lifted his head, bristling with fear and outrage, before he spoke again. "We can wish him back with the Dragon Balls."

"So why don't we?" Gohan asked. His voice caught, but he managed to gulp back a sob. He was _not_ going to start crying. Not in front of strangers, anyway.

The man didn't seem to notice. "Two aliens will be here in a year. Your father will be killed again unless you train to help him fight them. Understand?"

Gohan shook his head. "I'm only gonna be _five_," he said, and spread the fingers of one hand wide, just in case the dummy couldn't count. "I can't fight aliens if I'm five! I won't be strong enough!"

In answer, the man reached down and grabbed him by the head. There was a sensation of movement, and then something that felt like the time Cami had pushed one of their dad's wrist weights onto him. He bounced and landed roughly on the ground, rubbing his head and glaring for all he was worth.

The man pointed behind him.

With a sudden, sick sense of dread, Gohan turned and stared at what he had been thrown into. It was some kind of rocky outcropping – and in the middle of it, right where he had hit, was an indentation the size of a dinner plate.

"I did that?" he asked numbly. It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. There was no other explanation for the indentation, or for the fact that his head felt like someone had set off a gong inside it.

The man was still watching him silently. He was beginning to give Gohan the creeps.

He climbed to his feet and walked back over, rubbing his sore head. "What's your name?"

There was a long silence, as if the man was a bit miffed that he didn't know. Then, after a moment, "Piccolo."

"I'm Gohan," he said, "and you didn't have to _throw_ me."

Piccolo seemed remarkably unrepentant. "Get used to it. I'm training you, not coddling you." He glanced at their surroundings, which showed no sign of human habitation. "I'm leaving you for six months. If you survive, we'll see how well you fight."

"What? _HEY!_" Gohan drew himself up to his full height and balled his hands into fists. "You can't just leave me here! There's no fridge! Where'd my bed? I have to go to school!"

Piccolo sneered at him and took off. Gohan jumped and tried to catch him, but he fell far short and wound up making an undignified landing in the pond. By the time he hauled himself out again, he was stranded.

The little boy hugged his knees to his chin. He had been so happy this morning, when all he had worried about was getting more hot dogs than Cami and hiding baseballs from his mother and father. Now it seemed as if all of that had happened to other people, other Gohans who didn't have to worry about aliens showing up or fathers dying or stupid green jerks abandoning them in the middle of nowhere.

"Stupid Piccolo," he muttered, and made sure nobody was there to see before he let himself cry.

--

West Capitol Hospital was used to the Briefs-Sons. It had to be. Between laboratory accidents, training mishaps, and the most destructive children known to man, the doctors and nurses in the emergency room and intensive care unit were on a first-name basis with the famous family. More than a first-name basis, actually; there was a new pediatric unit in the works, courtesy of Dr. Briefs's considerable appreciation.

So no one was terribly shocked when Bulma, freshly showered and snarling for all she was worth, marched in with her daughter in her arms. Even if they had been, they wouldn't have stopped her, much less attempted to question her. When she demanded to know where Yamcha's room was, the nearest nurse pointed her in the right direction and then got out of the line of fire. Anyone who got in her way when she had _that_ expression on her face was asking for ruined eardrums.

A few minutes after she had stormed through the front doors, Bulma found herself sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs by her friend's bed. She had seen worse injuries plenty of times, but she squeezed his hand anyway. Both Yamcha and Goku would both be fighting the aliens in a year, which meant there was the distinct possibility that she would have to go through all of this again – that she would lose her husband and one of her oldest friends all at once.

Of course, if Goku and the other fighters lost, she probably wouldn't have time to think about wishing them back. In fact, she would probably be joining them in the afterlife. It wasn't a pleasant realization.

"Is Uncle Yamcha gonna die too?" Cami asked.

Bulma shook her head and reached over to ruffle her daughter's hair. She wasn't used to seeing Cami like this, so quiet and fearful. But then again, she very rarely saw either twin without the other right alongside them. She thought of them as a unit, because it was easy mental shorthand and they tended to act in tandem anyway. Separating them – making them Gohan and Cami instead of GohanCami – was something she hadn't tried to do since they were very small.

A thought belatedly occurred to her, and she leaned down to peer at her daughter intently. "Cami? Can you tell me where your brother is?"

Cami gave her a bewildered look and pointed straight ahead of her. "That way."

"You can always tell?"

The expression on her daughter's face shifted into something she was more familiar with – proud of her abilities, mischievous, opinionated, very much her mother's child. "'Course I can."

Bulma ignored a strange twinge in the back of her head, much like the nagging feeling she always got when she felt she was missing something important. She shook the thought away and dug through her pockets until she found a few crumpled bills. "Here," she said, passing the money over to Cami. "Go get me some coffee."

"Can I get some food too?"

"Fine. Sure. Scram."

Cami didn't need further encouragement. She practically ran out of the room, leaving Bulma alone with Yamcha. Someone would have to tell Puar what had happened at some point – just one more item on her growing list of things that needed to be done right now, today, this minute.

Another item on the list, maybe even higher than contacting Puar, was finding the two women she had seen at the crater. Although Bulma had only stuck around long enough to make sure that an ambulance was really coming, she had memorized as many details as she could. Other than her missing son and a very untrustworthy Piccolo, those women were the only people who knew exactly what had happened when her husband died.

Bulma sighed and scrubbed her face. She had already contacted Kuririn and told him to get to the hospital as soon as he could. While he and Yamcha hunted down the Dragon Balls, she would see about tracking the women down. They were both Royal Home Guards, or so the stolen hoverbike and the uniforms suggested, and there were only so many people in the Emperor's ineffective security force. Sooner or later, Bulma would find them.

Cami wandered back into the room with the coffee and what looked like half a vending machine's worth of snacks. She clutched three bags of potato chips protectively to her chest and scowled at her mother, as if daring her to protest.

"Don't get caught," Bulma said, and pointedly looked away while she sipped her coffee. She knew Cami was breaking about a half-dozen rules, but when had either of her children ever cared about obeying authority?

While her daughter tore through her snacks with enough gusto to do Goku proud, Bulma wrapped her fingers around the cardboard coffee cup and peered at Yamcha. He was starting to stir, which she knew meant he was probably going to wake up soon. At least that was what she hoped it meant; she felt very alone, and she needed someone to vent at. Or scream at. Or cry at. Or _something_.

Sure enough, her friend's eyes fluttered open after a few minutes. He blinked blearily, taking in his surroundings, before his gaze finally locked on her face. "Bulma?"

Before she could say anything, Cami let out a squeal and dove across the room, landing on her favorite uncle's stomach and throwing her arms around his neck. "You're not dead! I thought you were gonna die!"

"Huh? No, I'm – _ow!_ Cami! I liked that rib!" Yamcha gently pried her off and sat up, hissing and pressing one hand to his bandaged torso, glancing over at Bulma. "I feel like someone dropped one of your planes on me."

She felt her lips twitch. "No planes. Just an alien."

"A _what?_" Yamcha groaned and flopped back against his pillow, apparently deciding getting up wasn't the best idea after all. "Please tell me Goku beat the crap out of it."

There was a moment of silence and a sniffle – all the warning either of them had before Cami burst into tears.

That seemed to be all the answer Yamcha needed. His face fell, and he grimaced at Bulma. "Damn. Who do we have to wish back?"

"Who do you _think?_" Bulma snapped.

"Goku?" When Bulma just glared at him, he scooted as far away from her as his injuries allowed and gingerly patted Cami's back. "But he got the alien, right?"

Bulma very nearly threw something at him. "A lot of good _that_ did! Piccolo decided to kidnap Gohan! And we've got more aliens coming a year from now! This hasn't been a good day, Yamcha!"

"Yeah, I can tell." Yamcha absently wrapped an arm around Cami, who scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. When he seemed satisfied that she was settled, he covered his face with his free hand and addressed the world in general. "What the hell are we supposed to do?" he asked.

"Wish Goku back, for starters." Kuririn's voice drifted into the room a half-second before he walked in and took over the other plastic chair.

"You heard?" Bulma snapped. She wasn't in the mood for pleasantries.

"Yeah, once I got the doctors to let me through. I told them I was with you and they ran away."

Bulma snorted. "I can't imagine why."

The former monk grinned and then propped his chin on his hands, suddenly looking about as tired as Bulma felt. "I think I broke the island's capsule plane trying to get here."

"I'll get you another one. What did that pervert say?"

Kuririn shrugged. "Master Roshi thinks we should meet up on the island and start looking for the Dragon Balls there."

"What about me?" Yamcha asked. He had acquired what Bulma termed the deer-in-the-headlights expression, most often found when he was trapped in an unpleasant situation or cornered by some woman or another. "Please tell me that includes breaking me out of this place."

Kuririn shrugged. "That's the plan."

"Good. I'm going stir-crazy in here." Yamcha started to scan the room, his temporary relief vanishing almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Wait. Where the hell is my uniform?"

"After that fight?" Bulma shrugged. "Probably on its way to a landfill."

"_What?_"

"I saw the stadium when I was flying over," Kuririn said. "It's in ruins. You're lucky you only broke some ribs, so quit whining already."

The former thief set his jaw. "I am _not_ whining," he ground out through clenched teeth, "and I am _not_ going to Roshi's island in a hospital gown."

Bulma huffed and climbed to her feet. "Fine. I'll go see what I can arrange. The doctors should discharge the crybaby here if I say so."

"I'm _not_ a – " Yamcha began, and then clamped his mouth shut with what he probably thought was a frightening glare. This lasted for all of five seconds, right up until Cami clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a giggle. For the moment, at least, she seemed to have forgotten her own fears.

Her mother sighed, feeling strangely envious of the little girl. But she had doctors to terrorize, and wishing things were simpler wouldn't make any kind of difference. She shook her head and walked out of the room without another word.

--

Radditz was a fucking idiot.

For Vegeta, this wasn't a particularly new thought. He was of the opinion that most beings were weaklings with barely two brain cells to rub together. This opinion informed a great deal of how he viewed the universe at large – and, for the most part, it had served him very well indeed.

But this went above and beyond the usual stupidity. Radditz had always been idiot. As of now he was a _dead_ idiot, leaving his ruler short a subject.

Correction. _Two_ subjects, if Vegeta had understood the scouter's garbled transmissions correctly.

The Saiyan prince folded his arms and leaned back in his seat, his brow furrowing as he replayed the jumbled scenes in his head. Given the readouts provided by the fucking idiot's scouter, none of the indigenous beings on the backwater little world represented any kind of challenge. The only natives who had been recorded in detail were a male, two females, and a child. While some of them had stood out sharply from the general population, none of them would have been able to stop a Saiyan infant, much less a trained fighter.

The anomalies, on the other hand…

Radditz's third-class brother had gone native, and he, his halfbreed son, and the Namek were all pathetically weak. They shouldn't have been able to kill a first-class fighter. But that wasn't what interested Vegeta. It was the Namek's last recorded words – his apparent boast, transmitted through the damaged scouter, that on that world they could wish people back from the dead.

Someone would call that claim to Frieza's attention eventually, but it would take time. If Vegeta moved quickly, the Aisujin would be far too late to stop him.

He glanced at the scouter's transmission again – at the still-living Namek, the halfbreed boy, and the natives who would undoubtedly be waiting for him and Nappa. His gaze lingered on the black-haired female and he smirked. If pathetic creatures like these were all that stood between him and his goals, he had nothing to worry about.


	5. Learning To Fly

Disclaimer: _Dragonball Z_ is the property of Akira Toriyama. This story was written for fun, not profit. 

Author's Note: Uh. Assuming anyone's still reading this, thank you very much for your patience. Senior theses have a way of kicking one's butt. Many thanks to the people who let me ramble at them about plot points. 

- 

Road Less Traveled   
Chapter Four: Learning to Fly 

- 

_Well, the good old days may not return,   
And the rocks may melt, and the sea may burn.   
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers_

- 

Deep in the wilderness, a little boy paused in his efforts to start a fire and glanced up at the luminous full moon. Then he utterly failed to turn into a giant rampaging monkey. 

If he had known the chaos he was missing, he would have been sorely disappointed. 

Gohan had spent quite a lot of time in the middle of nowhere, mostly because his father loved the great outdoors. To be fair, Gohan did too – or at least he did if there was a capsule house nearby and there weren't too many bugs. He liked nature in small doses, thank you very much. 

Still, he theoretically knew how to fish, and he supposed he would get a fire started sooner or later. He could probably even get out of this place before winter came and he turned into a kid-shaped popsicle. 

For now, however, he was cold and hungry and miserable. This stunk. A lot. 

"Stupid aliens," he muttered under his breath. His pile of sticks, carefully ringed by small stones, stubbornly refused to burn. "Stupid spaceship. Stupid fire." He glared at the darkness around him. "Stupid, _stupid_ Piccolo." 

The defiance didn't start any fires, but it made him feel a little better. Gohan stuck out his tongue as an afterthought and went back to work. 

In the shadows, the aforementioned Piccolo watched and waited. 

- 

Chichi believed in bravery, in education, and in bellowing until she got her way. She and her captain disagreed on the value of the first two things, but they saw eye to eye regarding the third. 

"What the hell did you think you were doing? You could've got yourself killed!" 

The Royal Home Guard's Ginger Town barracks were nearly empty – those Guards who weren't on duty had either gone to break into Avani Gupta's hospital room or found somewhere else to spend the night. It was a matter of self-preservation. No one with an ounce of sense crossed Merrick when he was in that kind of mood. 

Chichi, however, clutched her bandaged arm with her good hand and tried to protest. "Captain, you told us to investigate – " 

"You almost got a junior Guard killed!" Merrick's voice rose a few decibels. His face was even redder than his hair. "You put Gupta in danger! You were the senior Guard present and it was your responsibility to protect her!" 

Half-formed arguments withered and died. Chichi knew her captain. Merrick's rules were idiosyncratic and cynical, but there were some that were never meant to be broken, by Guards or by anyone else. One of those all-important rules was ringing through her head, even louder than her captain's booming voice. 

A good Guard did not intentionally put another person in danger. Especially a person they were responsible for. Not if there was any other choice. 

She sucked in a quick breath and plunged on. She knew that she had endangered Avani, and nothing she said or did would change that. "Did you read my report?" she asked instead. 

"What?" Merrick snapped. "The one about the green man and the ray gun?" 

"The one about the aliens who will come here," Chichi elaborated. 

Merrick snatched a handful of files off his desk and waved them at her. "I can't submit this crap to my superiors, Mau. They want my head as it is!" 

"You don't believe me." 

"I do," he said. His voice had fallen to a more normal pitch, and he seemed to age ten years as she watched. "I saw the hole in that corpse, and I saw the wreckage. No hand weapon I know of could've done something like that." 

Chichi glanced at the files. "So why won't you submit the report?" 

"Because maybe someone else will believe you too, and they'll get delusions of grandeur and send the whole Guard out to get killed, for honor or glory or some bullshit reason like that." He stopped for a moment, folding his arms across his chest. "How much good did you do, Mau? What difference did you make?" 

She opened her mouth. Shut it. 

Merrick looked at her very strangely, as if he was a disappointed teacher instead of her commanding officer. "Whatever's coming here, it's not your job to fight it. You'll just get in the way." 

He turned away to put the files back on his desk, which was why he missed the angry spark that lit in Chichi's eyes. Her voice, however, somehow remained quite steady. "Captain, I need a leave of absence." 

"Mau…" Merrick sighed and didn't look at her. "You're a good Guard. Leave it at that." 

"I'll desert." 

"I know." He still didn't turn around – just sighed and stared at the paperwork littering his desk. "Go on. You've got your leave. Go get yourself killed." 

Chichi let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "I'll go pack." 

"Idiot," Merrick muttered, but she was already halfway out of his office. She didn't stop to answer, and he didn't go after her. 

- 

"Stupid son of a – damnit!" Bulma snatched up the alien eyepiece, scrambled to her feet, and stood poised to chuck the piece of junk out the window. What stopped her wasn't the realization that she would be throwing away valuable information, but rather the fact that she would have to go collect it again and pick sand out of it. That would be another few hours' work right there – something that rather detracted from the satisfaction she would get from throwing the stupid thing around. 

After a moment the frustration passed. Suddenly drained, she sank back down beside Roshi's dining table and fumbled for a tangle of wires. Pitching this thing out the window might make her feel better, but it wouldn't get her any closer to figuring out what was going to happen to her world. 

There was little sleep to be had at Roshi's small house – not when Cami woke up every half-hour to check and make sure her mother and adopted uncles hadn't disappeared on her. At the moment she was sprawled on Kuririn, clutching the front of his tee shirt and snoring against his shoulder. The martial artist was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Like Bulma, he seemed to have given up on getting any rest. 

Which was probably why he took his life into his hands and piped up. "No luck, huh." 

Bulma snarled at him. 

"Right. Shutting up now." He shifted his grip on Cami, who was probably cutting off the circulation to one of his arms. "Think it's safe to hand her off to Yamcha?" 

"Only if you want a tantrum." 

Kuririn made a face. "Guess I'm stuck with her." 

"Good guess." Bulma sighed and drummed her fingers on the table, glaring at the eyepiece. "This thing has some really delicate circuitry. I can't just go in and hotwire it – and even if I could, I don't know the language or the alphabet. Once I get into the data, I'm going to have to convert it to something I can actually read. Assuming I can get at the data in the first place. Argh!" 

Kuririn wisely said nothing – which was just as well, since she wasn't in the mood for helpful or sympathetic comments. Oh, no. She was in the mood to scream at someone. 

All boasting and false modesty aside, Bulma knew that she was a genius – not necessarily a scientist like her father was, but certainly a brilliant engineer and inventor. More to the point, she didn't think of the world in same way that most people did. For her, everything had a logical beginning and an end, as well as qualities that could be measured, products that could be synthesized, and effects that could be recreated. She attacked folklore and mythology with electronics and machines – not because she didn't believe, but because she _did_ believe, so intently and so fervently, that she had to make legends work on her own terms. 

It said something about her that out of the hundreds of people who had searched for the Dragon Balls, she was one of the only ones who had sat down to build a tracking device. It would never have occurred to her that this was unusual. 

So it was particularly frustrating for her to come up a machine that wouldn't behave. 

"Maybe you should take a break," Kuririn said. It wasn't a question. 

She scrubbed her face, trying to fight off the feeling that she was going too slow and that there was no more time. "I need coffee," she muttered, climbing to her feet. 

"Or sleep." 

"Look who's talking." Bulma bit back a yawn and flipped on the kitchen light long enough to dig a couple of mugs out of the cupboard. "There's not much left in the pot. It's going to be sludge." 

Kuririn laughed. "I'm gonna need it anyway." He took Bulma's proffered mug with his free hand, making a face at Cami. "I think she's out for the night." 

Bulma glanced at her daughter. Like her father, Cami was attempting to hog as much space as possible by sprawling in all directions. She was also drooling, although Bulma felt no need to point this out to Kuririn. Instead she sipped what had to be at least her tenth cup of coffee, her throat catching as she watched Cami snore softly and shift in her sleep. The Son Sprawl, Bulma had uncharitably called it from time to time – and the sight of it now made her miss her family so much that it felt like there was a vise squeezing her heart. 

"I wouldn't move her," she muttered from behind the coffee mug. "She looks comfy." 

Maybe Kuririn heard something in her voice, because he didn't ask again. Instead he nodded in the direction of the eyepiece. "So have you figured out anything?" 

She jumped on the distraction. "Of course I have. I'm a genius, aren't I?" Setting the horrible coffee aside, she picked up the eyepiece and pushed a button beside the tiny viewscreen. "It's a combination radar and transmitter. I can figure that out just by how it's put together." 

Kuririn frowned at it. "I don't like the sound of that transmitter part." 

"That's what got fried anyway. It shut down after a few minutes." She leaned on the wall, turning the eyepiece over and over in her hands. "As near as I can tell, the radar part of it is designed to pick up some kind of energy signature." 

"Like your Dragon Ball radar." 

"Probably, but I don't think that's what it's looking for. I doubt it's designed to pick up anything like power plants, either, 'cause anything this sensitive would've overloaded the second it got close to one of the big cities." 

Kuririn propped his chin on his hand – a difficult maneuver, given the four-year-old in his lap. "So is it gonna be able to tell us anything about these aliens?" 

Bulma fought the urge to fling the eyepiece out the window again. Instead she flashed a strained, tired smile. "Damned if I know," she said. 

- 

Halfway around the world, her son was having his own problems. 

By means of some hard work and a lot of swearing, Gohan had managed to get a fire going. He was still hungry and he was still stuck in the middle of nowhere, but at least he wasn't quite as cold. 

He was, however, starting to get a bit frightened. The glowing eyes all around him had a lot to do with this. 

Something was growling. Something _big_. Just great. 

The little boy scrambled to his feet, clutching the end of a burning stick with both hands. With as much courage as he could muster, he waved his makeshift weapon back and forth, snarling at the eyes for all he was worth. 

They didn't seem impressed. Stupid eyes. 

"Shows what they know," Gohan muttered. He sat down cross-legged by the fire, still holding the flaming branch. The only sounds were the crackling flames and the distant growling noises. 

And his stomach. He hadn't had anything to eat since lunchtime and he was starving. 

Gohan scowled into the darkness, locked in the middle of a dilemma. On the one hand, whatever was out there sounded big and dangerous. It probably had claws. Sharp teeth were almost certainly involved. One little kid, alone and mostly unarmed, probably looked like a great midnight snack. 

On the other hand, that little kid was _really_ getting hungry. 

"What would Daddy do?" he asked the eyes. When images of his father kicking and punching giant scary monsters came to mind, he shook his head. "'Kay. Can't do that." He peered at the eyes again, apparently perplexed, until his entire face suddenly lit up. "Hey! Eyes! What would _Mommy_ do?" 

The eyes didn't answer. They didn't run either, which showed just how much they knew about their target. Gohan had never been trained to fight and he didn't have any weapons, but he did have a fire and sticks and rocks. Given the sheer trauma he had managed to inflict on assorted babysitters and preschool teachers, that was more than enough. 

Some time later, a hapless dinosaur was going to find itself the victim of an intricately rigged set of booby traps and slingshots. But Gohan decided it didn't need to know that. 

- 

Morning found Bulma still laboring over the eyepiece, muttering something incomprehensible about electromagnetic signatures and strangling homicidal aliens with their own hair. Even Roshi gave her a wide berth, and anyone who wanted intact eardrums squeezed into the tiny kitchen for breakfast. 

"So what's the plan?" Yamcha asked around a yawn. Puar, who had been perched on his shoulder, squeaked and hung on for dear life. 

Kuririn shrugged and fought the urge to yawn himself. "I was gonna take the plane and see if we can track down the Dragon Balls. At least once we figure out what that eyepiece does," he added, glancing in Bulma's direction. She was still grumbling under her breath. 

"Huh? What eyepiece?" Cami looked up from her breakfast. The little girl, perched on an empty bit of counter, was probably the only well-rested person in the house. 

Yamcha nodded toward her mother. "That one, kiddo. The one you guys found on that alien." 

"Oh." Cami sucked on her cereal spoon for a moment, then seemed to lose interest. "Can we go get Gohan after we find all the Dragon Balls?" 

Kuririn grimaced. Like Yamcha and Roshi, he had no idea what to tell Cami about her brother. He wanted to get Gohan back just as badly as she did – but he knew what Piccolo was capable of, and there was no way any of them could go up against him in an all-out fight. 

Explaining that to Cami didn't seem like a good idea, though. Knowing her, she would wander off and find Piccolo just to see if he was as strong as everyone claimed. 

"Here," he said instead, shoving her at the fridge. "Want some more food?" 

Cami beamed and set to rummaging, emerging with what looked like half a leftover ham. Dedicated fighter or not, Kuririn wasn't above bribing people in tricky situations – particularly four-year-olds. If it got him a moment's peace, so much the better. 

"_AHA!_" 

Or not. 

Bulma barged into the kitchen with the eyepiece clutched in one hand, looking much more like her usual smug self. "Ha! While you all were sitting around, _I_ figured this thing out." 

Kuririn decided it wasn't in his best interests to point out that she'd only had time to work because Cami had spent half the night snoring in his ear. Instead he moved closer to get a better look at the contraption. "So what's it scan for?" 

"Ki!" Bulma crowed. She fitted the eyepiece over her temple and touched the activation switch. Instantly green letters and numbers began to crawl across the screen – too small for Kuririn to read at that distance, but distinct enough for him to know that she had somehow managed to sort out the alphabet. 

"What's it need to do that for?" Cami asked around a mouthful of ham. "You don't need a buncha machines to find a ki." 

"But these aliens might not know that," Kuririn said slowly, a grin spreading across his face. He wasn't about to complain about any weaknesses they could exploit. "Bulma, are you sure that's what this thing does?" 

His answer was an indelicate snort. "Of course I'm sure. Look." She tilted her head toward Roshi and touched the side of the eyepiece again. "See? This tells me he has a ki level of 139, and you've got – " She turned toward him and tapped the contraption again. "Ah, here we go. 206." 

"You're stronger than Master Roshi," Cami said, sticking her tongue out at the Turtle Hermit. Kuririn decided to keep any comments to himself. 

"What kind of range does it have?" Yamcha asked. 

Bulma shrugged. "I'm not sure yet. It's picking up someone a long way away with a reading of 329, so as far as I know, the range is infinite." 

"That's gotta be Piccolo," Kuririn muttered. "Which direction is that ki in?" 

Bulma and Cami pointed simultaneously. "That's where Gohan is too," Cami added, giving all of them a reproachful look. "I can find Gohan and we can tell were the guy who took him is with that thing – and if everybody hangs on to me, we can ride on Kito'un." She folded her arms and tapped her foot, like a miniature version of her mother. "We've gotta rescue him!" 

"We need to get the Dragon Balls first," Roshi said, ignoring Cami's glare. "Then we'll see if we ought to rescue your brother." 

"_If?_" 

"Hmm?" Bulma tapped her daughter on the head to get her attention, although she was frowning at the window. "There's something coming this way. Its ki rating is only 54, but it's moving pretty fast." She glanced over her shoulder at Roshi. "I think someone else is flying toward the island." 

- 

That someone turned out to be fairly familiar, at least to Bulma. As the entire household piled out onto the sand, the sound of a poorly repaired hoverbike grew louder and louder. A speck appeared in the distance, closing fast, until it turned sharply and braked right at the shoreline, spraying everyone with wet sand and surf. 

"Huh?" Cami tugged on Bulma's arm. "I think that's the lady we saw by the spaceship." 

It was indeed the same woman, although she had one arm in a sling and was dressed in a blue gi instead of a uniform. Her black hair hung in a long, thick braid down her back. There was a small pack slung over her good shoulder, and a sword and what looked like a giant axe were strapped to either side of her rundown bike. 

When she spotted Bulma and Cami, she stopped and blinked at them. "What are you doing here?" 

"What're _you_ doing here?" Cami shot back. 

"I'm here to train with Master Roshi." The woman shifted her pack and looked around the small island. A hint of uncertainty crept into her voice. "This _is_ the right place, isn't it? I haven't seen him in years." 

"It is indeed," Roshi said as he worked his way to the front of the crowd. "And who might you be?" 

The woman drew herself up to her full height, such as it was. "I'm Chichi Mau. You trained my father, the Ox-King." 

"The Ox-King?" Yamcha didn't look terribly pleased with that news. No doubt he was also remembering their encounter with the giant and the fiery mountain – and now that she knew what to look for, this woman did look a lot like the tiny, helmeted girl Bulma had last seen years ago. 

If Chichi remembered either of them, she didn't give any sign. All of her attention was on Roshi. "I know you don't take a lot of students, but I need to train with you anyway." 

The Turtle Hermit seemed to consider her. She certainly didn't look very strong, at least as far as Bulma could tell – and while the eyepiece placed her ki level quite a bit above anyone on the nearest islands, it wasn't anywhere near Roshi's, much less Yamcha's or Kuririn's. 

Which was why she wasn't at all surprised when Roshi shook his head. "I don't have time for a new student." 

"Then _make_ time," Chichi snapped. "Unless you've got the little boy or that giant green man with you, I'm the only one who knows what happened." She jabbed a finger at Bulma and Cami, who eeped and hid behind her mother. "I saw the whole fight. Ask them!" 

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Yes, you were there. We don't have time for arguments. I can talk to you about that later." 

Chichi plowed on as if she hadn't spoken. "You saw how much damage that fight caused – and that was with only three fighters. So I figure you'll need all the help you can get." She made a motion as if she wanted to fold her arms and had only belatedly remembered that one of them was still in a sling. "And anyway, I'm not going away until you decide to train me. You're just stuck with me." 

"Can't be worse than Launch," Yamcha muttered under his breath. Bulma didn't bother to hide her smirk. 

Roshi, however, was considering Chichi carefully. "You saw the fight?" 

"That's what I've been saying, isn't it?" Her face lit up, as if she had just spotted an inroad. "How about I tell you what I know, and _then_ we can talk about training? Deal?" 

Bulma butted in. "Deal," she said. She wanted to know exactly what had happened to Goku – and if she got to talk to this Chichi sooner instead of later, so much the better. "Come inside. I'm not talking out here." 

She didn't miss the way Chichi's face split into a wide, relieved grin. Apparently the younger woman wasn't quite as self-assured as she liked to think. If nothing else, it made Bulma like her a little better. 

- 

"That's it, I think." Chichi sat back on her heels, frowning down at the pad of paper open in front of her. There was a simple diagram sketched out on it, with marks and arrows to indicate how Goku and his fellow fighters had moved. It wasn't a terribly _good_ sketch, but Merrick had emphasized quick communication, not artistic ability. 

Master Roshi ripped the diagram off the pad and sat back to examine it carefully. This left Chichi under the intense focus of everyone else – three adults, a little girl, a cat, and a pig. If they were trying to put her at ease, this wasn't the way to do it. 

"You don't remember anything else?" the blue-haired woman – Bulma – asked after a moment. She had been scribbling down notes on another piece of paper as Chichi had recounted what she remembered of the fight. 

Chichi shook her head. "I was in a crater, remember?" 

The little girl planted her hands flat on the table and hauled herself up so her face was level with Chichi's. "Did Gohan _really_ blow up the spaceship?" 

"Forget the spaceship," the man named Kuririn said. "Did you hear what he did to that alien?" 

"That's not too surprising," Bulma said, glancing up from her notes. "Remember how strong Goku was?" 

Kuririn nodded. "Yeah, but he was fourteen and he'd been trained some already. Gohan's only four. And he hasn't had any training, right?" 

"_Oh._" Bulma ran a hand over her face. "Great. Just _great_. At least that explains why Piccolo took him." 

Chichi looked from one to the other. "This doesn't bother you? He's _four!_ He shouldn't be training – he should be in school!" 

Yamcha gave her a sour look. "Are _you_ gonna go tell Piccolo that?" 

"Maybe I will!" she snapped, planting her good hand on her hip. "I can't believe you haven't gone to get him yet. Some fighters you are." 

She received a trio of murderous looks, but then someone cleared his throat and the united front of Bulma, Kuririn and Yamcha was distracted. 

There was a man standing in the doorway – a short, squat little man with shaggy black hair and a long sword. He gave her an uncomprehending look before surveying the rest of the people in the room. "Tien and Chaotzu aren't here?" 

Kuririn completely ignored his question. "Hey, aren't you that guy from Karin Tower?" 

The man gave him a withering look. "Of course I am, idiot. Kami wants all of you to meet him at the tower – Tien and Chaotzu too." 

This seemed to make as little sense to everyone else as it did to Chichi. "Why does he want us to do that?" 

"So he can train you. What else?" The man stopped and frowned directly at Chichi. "Who's that?" 

"I'm Master Roshi's new student," Chichi said. If this got her glares from most of the people in the room – well, she could just ignore that. 

The man rolled his eyes. "Whatever. You'd better come too, then. Don't take forever." Piece said, he turned and left without another word. 

Master Roshi, turned an unreadable stare at Chichi. "Since when are you my student?" 

"I'm supposed to come with you people to this tower, aren't I? So I ought to be trained." It wasn't the best argument and Chichi knew it, but she figured desperation entitled her to a little bit of trickery. Merrick's words were still ringing through her head. 

She wasn't going to get in the way anymore. Not a year from now. Not ever. 

The Turtle Hermit just sighed at her. "We'll talk about this later. Kuririn, Yamcha, you should get going." 

Yamcha jerked a thumb in Chichi's direction. "What about her?" "Better bring her with you." He paused for a moment, and something about the expression on his face – some thinning of the mouth or the lines around the eyes – made Chichi wonder just how old he really was. "Kuririn?" he said at last. 

Kuririn blinked. "Huh?" 

"If her brother could do that kind of damage to this alien untrained…" Master Roshi sighed. "Take Cami. She needs to be trained, too." 

It was strange. What stood out in Chichi's memories of that moment wasn't the peculiarity of the situation, nor the fact that she was, in fact, in far over her head. No, what she remembered later was stunned, stricken expression on Bulma's face. 


End file.
